As CEO of Zappos (acquired by Amazon in 2009), Hsieh is known as a company-culture expert: Zappos was voted the #11 best company to work for in 2012 by Fortune, and part of Delivering Happiness involves coaching others to follow in its footsteps.

Hsieh stopped by our SXSW #StartupLife Celebration yesterday to share some thoughts on his peculiar iniative: The Downtown Project, which aims to turn Las Vegas into a vibrant community. In the video below, Hsieh explains what on earth this has to do with Zappos – “Culture is to a company what community is to a city” – and why he wants to increase serendipitous interactions at the company and in the city. Watch the video interview with Tony Hsieh.

We partnered with Delivering Happiness for our SXSW video series last year, when we also interviewed Hsieh. You can find more of this year’s coverage of the #StartupLife at SXSW here.

Editor’s Note: Thank you to Vitrue, a sponsor of our #Startuplife Celebration and Tech Cocktail’s special SXSW video series. Check out Vitrue’s live daily updates from SXSW!